


Seven Years

by yuletide_archivist



Category: American Idol RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-22
Updated: 2008-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:23:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1628939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by theroseparfait</p><p>David Cook/OFC</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Years

**Author's Note:**

> Written for jennifer

 

 

**Fall 2000**

They meet in English class, in the twelfth grade. It surprises her that David's even in this class - he's the hot shot baseball player, the star of the school play, the guy in the band, the guy who gets every girl. He's not the type of guy who wants to - or even has time to - sit around quoting Shakespeare in AP English Lit.

She's shy and a little bit awkward - not that there's a seventeen year old who isn't - and when he asks if the seat next to her is empty, she stumbles over her words and can feel her cheeks redden as she attempts a response. He starts a conversation, and she tries her hardest not to look so gawky, but when David Cook is talking to you, that is easier said than done.

It goes on for weeks: David attempts to make small talk, and she can barely respond without her heart racing and sounding all tongue-tied. There's no way David likes her - she's quiet and likes be alone or read in her free time. He's the one guy at school that everyone knows and everyone loves. 

It's a Friday near the end of October, rainy and disgusting outside. She's trudging along on her way home when he drives up in his Jeep and offers her a ride. She wouldn't normally accept, but hey - it was raining and she was cold and she'd probably be late for work if she had walked anyway, and...

David seems to take pleasure in the fact that she's finally acknowledging him, and he badgers her with questions on the way home. When they reach her driveway, David says something weird like (and she's not even sure she heard him right) "This was fun. We should do this again"

Stupidly, she squeaks, "Like, a date?"

He laughs that belly laugh of his, even though he shouldn't have a belly laugh, and _God_ , does she have his laughs memorized? Then he says, "Sure, why not? Want to get lunch tomorrow?" She has no choice but to oblige, because turning him down might be even weirder than actually going out on a date with him, and besides, nobody has ever turned down David Cook. So she says yes. 

And that's how David and Emily became an item. 

Their first date is the weirdest thing, ever. They talk about Hamlet and his band and her band (like, the marching variety, not a cool rock band) and about everything and nothing and suddenly it's five hours later and they're still sitting in the restaurant and David's hand is like, hovering near her thigh and she has no clue what to do. Why don't they teach you these things in school? He drives her home and as she gets out of the car he looks at her, sort of expectedly, and grins, and then he leans in and places a quick kiss on her lips. It's her first. 

She can barely contain her excitement after that, and five minutes after she gets out of the car of course she gushes about it to all her friends, which, okay, is like three people and her cat, about how he's so sweet and caring but he's a rock star and he's smart and he plays baseball. Of course her friends are excited for her, but they warn her that it's David Cook, and this could possibly be too good to be true. She doesn't listen. She makes friends with his drama nerds and his band mates and his baseball friends but usually hangs back shyly most of the time until David hooks an arm around her waist and says "This is Emily, my girlfriend" and smiles that adorable smile at her.

They date for the entire year - if Blue Springs had a power couple, they'd be it. David's mom loves her, and her parents treat David like he's some kind of angel. She finally comes out of her shell when she starts dating him - she goes out on the weekends and talks to people at school and her parents tell her she finally looks _happy_.

When she gets accepted to Columbia in April, he encourages her to follow her dreams and promises that they'll stay together. He's already been accepted to Central Missouri State with a full ride, and she believes him when he tells her that distance doesn't matter.

A few weeks before they leave for college - him just a couple of hours away, her to New York City - she stops by his house unannounced to drop something off. The front door's unlocked, and she has this funny feeling when she's walking upstairs that something's about to go wrong.

Sure enough, she walks in on David making out with Liz, the girl who was like, infatuated with him all of senior year. David sees her a few seconds too late, and of course he's all, "it's not what it looks like!" but she doesn't let him say anymore. She runs out of the house, slams the door, and tries her best to forget that David Cook ever existed. 

**Spring 2008**

Fast forward seven years, and she turns on the TV one march to see David singing some Mariah Carey song. She barely recognizes him, first of all (who the hell did what to his hair?) and then she's shocked that it's actually him she's watching sing " _Girl, don't you know you can't escape me_ "

She hadn't kept in touch with many people from high school, but she'd heard that he'd moved down to Tulsa to play in a band with friends and that he had released an independent record. But this, American Idol? 

So not David's scene.

She becomes more and more hooked on the show, till she's voting tens, hundreds, and thousands of times for him. When it comes down to the finale, she spends the entire night locked up in her bedroom, hitting "redial" and hoping for the best.

She knows she has to find him - yeah, she's a high powered business executive for a well known music company in New York City, but he's a rock star in LA. Oh, and he's basically seduced like, every woman in America by now, Jesus. But she knows she's not just any woman. So she does what any girl does to get what she needs out of a guy - she calls his mom.

Beth picks up on the first ring and is pretty surprised to hear from her - after all, she's pretended David never existed for the last seven years and assumes he's done the same - but when she asks if she can possibly see David on tour this summer, Beth is more than happy to hook her up with tickets and after-party passes for the first Newark show.

She plans out what she's going to say to him like, all summer, and changes her outfit three times before they leave. Of course it's a good idea at the time to have like, five beers, and so when they're ushered backstage after the show to meet the idols (and God, is it weird to call David Cook an American Idol), she feels slightly nauseous and she's tipsy enough to know she's going to word vomit all over him when she sees him.

David takes forever to come into the room, and of course Michael Johns has to crack a joke about the rock star probably taking care of his groupies backstage, and all of a sudden she's seventeen again and self-conscious and clumsy and _damn_ , does she want to run away right about now.

Of course that's when David walks in the room, and he notices her right away. She looks pretty much the same - yeah, she's chopped half of her hair off and she's wearing more makeup today than she probably wore all four years of high school, but he still recognizes her and walks straight up to her

"What are you doing here?" he asks, tugging her in for a hug. Tara's busy cooing over David Archuleta, and nobody seems to have noticed that David is in the room, so they have a couple minutes to talk. 

He's still the same guy, easygoing and all touchy-feely, and they talk about music and his record and everything possible in the ten minutes they have before the fangirls start attacking David. At the end of the night, he nudges her a bit and asks her for her number. She hasn't brought anything for him to sign- for fuck's sake, it's just _David_ , but she steals his sharpie and scribbles her phone number on the back of his hand, expecting him to take a shower, wash it off, and forget she ever existed again.

She's pleasantly surprised when she gets a text only a couple of hours later "Good seeing you. Can we talk again sometime? ? " and she decides to text him back. And then he texts back, and they're having this whole, like, texting conversation while he's in his bus riding on a tour bus to the next sold out crowd, and she's back at home in sweats, attempting to get all the work she didn't do this week cause she was too busy thinking about him. 

The text conversations turn in to phone calls that turn into video chats that turn into her visiting him on the tour every chance she can get. Then when the lights go down in Tulsa, he invites her out to LA, telling her he needs as much help with the record that he can get, and he knows she knows everything about the business, and he really would love it if she took some time off to come visit him anyway, and please Emily? And of course she can't resist, it's David - so she goes there and meets Andy and Neal and tries to ignore the funny looks they throw David when they thinks she's not looking. 

Later, when David's taking a break outside, Neal approaches her and tells her, bluntly, "He's still in love with you. You know that, right?"

She shrugs and goes back to her work, and ignores the fact that David's always so flirty with her, and that when she leaves every night he hugs her, and that he calls her in the middle in the night asking, "hey, what do you think of this lyric?" and blames it on the fact that he's just...lonely. Besides, it's been like, three months since they saw each other for the first time in New York, and if he wanted to do something, he would've by now, right?

One day, about two weeks before the album's ready to go, they spend like, twelve straight hours in the studio. When the day's finally over, Dave's all like, let's go to dinner somewhere nice and celebrate getting this track done, and of course she can't say no, and it's almost like a real date - they drink a little too much wine and even order dessert and when he's driving her back to her hotel he keeps throwing glances at her. So when they finally reach the hotel she has to ask him upstairs and of course he agrees. 

She starts a pot of coffee while he's sitting on the kitchen barstool, just looking at her. And all of a sudden, he's like, three inches away from her, and he's saying sorry for all that happened like, senior year of high school and how he was a dumb and horny teenager and how he still loves her and then he kisses her. They kiss and kiss and kiss till she realizes it's like, two AM and they have a 7 o'clock call tomorrow, and then of course he has to go back and be the seventeen year old David, and he's all, "Wanna go steady with me?"

And of course, she says yes. 

 


End file.
